The Way of the Wombat

Thing The First - almost all my friends in the UK are more or less under snow. All day Friday, and all day today, it has snowed here. And this is all we have to show for it....



A dusting on the higher ground. Otherwise it simply disappeared as it landed. I am quite envious of everyone who has 6 inches and more!



Thing The Second - new friend gatty mentioned something I had not read - probably because it was written a while before I migrated from the Buffyverse over to the Tolkien fandom. It is Bagenders - a series in which "The Fellowship have been made immortal and are living together in the house-share from Hell." The writers happily acknowledge that it owes quite a bit to Father Ted & The Young Ones, with the odd shout out to Terry Pratchett, Julian and Sandy from 'Round the Horne', 'Blackadder Goes Forth', Blue Peter - and lots of other things. So British friends who enjoyed Father Ted and/or The Young Ones you really should go and read!

Having read LotR, or seen the films, is really all the Tolkien knowledge you really need.

And as for me - I am going to dive back in... I may be some time.



Thing The Third - Tolkien Friends - do you remember stormwreath's Royal Houses of the Noldor made simple with chibi figures? Well he has begun to tell us The History of Middle Earth - starting In The Beginning - and has also, now, helped us figure out The Valaquenta - go, go and look - the history of Middle Earth has never looked cuter. And if you look in the comments to that post you will see that he and I have our own thoughts on why Nienna lives where she does, and cries so much...

Before the WriterConUK meet in August the committee challenged people to go out and write - and post a link on the WriterConUK journal before November 1st. Then I suggested that people might find inspiration to write in some of the talks at that event - for example on the use of smell, or the use of music, or using prompts of all sorts.

Well - I am now just gettin in under the wire myself! I have written something specifically for the challenge, rather than linking to any of the bits and bobs I've written since (mostly drabbles!). And I took up my own prompts... so you might be pleased to know that the story was inspired by this piece of music. Then I also considered the prompts of 'red' and 'silk' mentioned in passing by Brutti-ma-Buonni, and a couple of the assorted smells I had chosen on the roll of the dice! Have fun spotting them. Oh - and I also set myself a word count to meet!

Title: Invocation Of Memory.
Fandom: Tolkien
Character: Aragorn
Length: 500 words
Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Middle Earth and the characters therein do not belong to me, but are being used for amusement only, and all rights remain with the estate of JRR Tolkien.


( Tolkien tells us that Aragorn travelled widely in his youth... )

Hurrah! Long weekend! Although I have a feeling I might have to spend some time making a hundredweight of carrot cake; whenever we do anything at church that involves cake I get guilted into making it - "You will be making carrot cake, won't you? I particularly want some of your carrot cake." You can get bored making carrot cake after a while...



Now for the PIA. Especially for friends in the UK and Europe - although all are welcome - if you are at all interested in the annual get-together that is WriterConUK (anyone in any sort of fandom very welcome - writer, reader, beta, artist, vidder whatever!) but have thought 'Mid-August is not a good time for me...' then please, if you haven't joined the community before then do go and join so that you can Help decide when next year's event will be - go, vote for the months you are most able to come!


Second PIA (or possibly pimping...) Wonder why I'm using my Éomer icon? Friends who read in the Tolkien fandom you have got to go and read - MY HUSBAND is writing Éomer/Lothiriel... Actually it is an adventure story involving the Rohirrim, the Haradrim, Drow - but there is Éomer/Lohiriel romance, too - and rather well written romance even though he finds it the hardest bit to do. Legolas is in there, too - and he also writes a good Legolas & Gimli friendship I have found!

And if you are likely to have time on your hands this weekend - either because of the extra day off or, and keep safe folks, because you are holed up avoiding the big storm but still have power, then don't forget all the wonderful stories that were written for The Lord of the Rings Big Bang!.

Calling those of you interested in the debacle over the LordoftheRingsFanfiction site - well actually for those of you with even a working knowledge of LotR, or Winnie the Pooh, or how fanfic works -

My husband has issued a challenge to Keith Manders to prove that he's not just a rapacious money-grubber trying to loot fandom after the style of the late and unlamented Fanlib:

Sadly Keith Mander is unlikely to read S2C's journal to respond - but we'd certainly read it if he did...

Oh - and why Winnie the Pooh? The guy already has a Winnie the Pooh fan site - no kidding! He has also bought a Twilight archive to see if he can make money out of it, too - but not even S2C is cruel enough to make use of that!!

There have been a good deal of posts, in the Tolkien fandom, about a fic site which has been bought by someone who has said, in the past, that he intends to become very rich by buying (I paraphrase because I am too lazy to go and check exact words...) 'run-down sites where the current owner has no idea how commercially valuable they may be.' And that he intends to 'take over fandom'.

As you can imagine a lot of people are very pissed off at someone intends to make money from their creative work, and worry that he will draw the wrath of the Tolkien Estate, which can be extremely wrathful, if it looks as if he is making any money at all out of Tolkien related stuff. (If you are interested Esteliel has written a good account of the whole thing.)

I didn't post there, and hardly ever read there - the default is grey print on black, and even if you change to the alternative grey on cream it isn't an easy place to read.

So - why am I mentioning it at all?

Well - the person who had developed the site has said one reason she sold it was because she was paying a lot out of her own pocket because no matter how often she asked for donations almost no-one gave...

Do you read fanfic at any of the archive sites that has a 'donate' button? Have you ever donated? If not, why not?

Do you want to find your favourite archive disappearing, or being bought by someone who annoys so many of your favourite authors that they withdraw their stories? No? Then go and click on that 'Donate' button. And yes - I do - I reckon I get a lot of pleasure from my favourite sites and on the three of them that have a 'Donate' button I click it at least once a year.

It is not expensive - if every reader gave the cost of one paper-back book a year to their favourite sites there would be no question of any of them having problems keeping going. So - just_ann_now gave me a really good book (Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner) - the cover price is $6.99. I can donate that much money, or even just $5.00, and I can read guilt-free for a year.

Take a lesson from the Lord of the Rings Fanfiction buy out and make sure your favourite archive in whatever fandom has the support it needs. And the second lesson - if you want me to read, don't use grey on black as your default...

And now for the semen... This is a short clip from an e-mail from my daughter, currently having a whale of a time in Buenos Aires -

There was no inflight entertainment on the Iberia flight and I've been on nicer areoplanes with flybe and easyjet! But it got me here and I can hardly complain when BA had put me up in the Hilton and the Marriott and paid for all my meals the last 2 days!

I got through a rather lax customs, full of signs warning against importing semen into the country(!), and to Katie's with no problems...

I leave you to make of that what you will!!

This drabble set looks at two days in the life of a post-war family in Rohan. They should be quite readable even if you have never seen or read anything about the Lord of the Rings; it could almost be any rural family living through the first winter after a major war.

I have a soft spot for these people - the Rohirrim who lost so much - you may have realised!

So

Author; curiouswombat
Title; First Snow Day.
Source: LotR
Characters; Rohirrim..
Rating G.
For the 'Water' challenges.

Disclaimer: The characters in this story do not belong to me, but are being used for amusement only, and all rights remain with the estate of JRR Tolkien.

( First Snow Day )

And yes - goodness knows how/why I was inspired to write about the inhabitants of a landlocked country when the prompts were all related to water!

A few more pictures from the hobbit's journal - including Elrond. It is for Elrond I have chosen my icon. There is a picture of Elrohir as well - I guess we must just assume that Elladan looked very similar. He gave me a bit of a WTF moment, too.

There is also picture of the twins' Grandma, and a couple to show the family likenesses in the family of the Stewards, too.


( What do you think? )

Next I'll scan in some of 'the baddies' - I rather like them - they look more as I would expect!

I feel mean leaving you (and me!) with possible nightmares about Legalien and Aragorn the tortoise - not to mention Mad!Gimli.

So I have scanned three more of the pictures -and these are better!

( Tom & Goldberry, and the Retreat from Caradhas )

I will get around to the Rohirrim pictures tomorrow - I'm sure you'll prefer them, Azalais! But then there is Elrond... and there is something very wrong about Elrond!

PS - mood is frustrated because our internet connection is very iffy tonight!

I think we have had but a short autumn and are now in winter. It is cold, and has been blowing a hooley for the past few days. This evening, as I drove home from work about 6pm, the car warning light came on for 'possible frost'; in other words the temperature had dropped down to 4C for the first time in many months. The wind has blown all the leaves from the pear tree in the garden, they are a soggy mass under foot in the yard. And yet there are still both fuchsias and geraniums in bloom in the yard... weird.

Unrelated to the weather, I have been reading "Bliss Like This", a collection of five centuries of love poetry written by women. There are some wonderful poems in it - you may find another one or two cropping up here over the next weeks, but I thought I might share this - one canto of a much longer work.

When I read it it made me think of Arwen and her Aragorn - I wonder if other Tolkien loving friends agree?

The Mortal Lease

Yet for one rounded moment I will be
No more to you than what my lips may give,
And in the circle of your kisses live
As in some island of a storm-blown sea,
Where the cold surges of infinity
Upon the outward reefs unheeded grieve,
And the loud murmur of our blood shall weave
Primeval silences round you and me.


If in that moment we are all we are
We live enough. Let this for all requite.
Do I not know, some winged things from far
Are borne along illimitable night
To dance their lives out in a single flight
Between the moonrise and the setting star?

Edith Wharton.

It's been really good fun going back to Brotherhood. It includes a sex scene that was just a total joy to write, and I realised, as I wrote it, one of the reasons I so enjoy this whole series. But I will write more about that in a separate post!

So - as it is almost six weeks since the last chapter, a quick résumé - the just turned twenty-year-old Dawn/Tindómë has been rescued from the pirate ship, and the rescue party have returned to Minas Tirith just in time for the beginning of the Midsummer celebrations and the naming ceremony of the infant princess...

It might be useful to remember that Fritha was the maid who looked after the group who stayed at Helm's Deep in the early chapters.

Chapter Thirty-two of Brotherhood.

Word count 5,550
Rated 15 as usual
Beta'd by the inestimable speakr2customrs



( Chapter Thirty-two )

S2C was very tired when he beta'd it - please do point out if we have missed anything.