Medium Dawn Felagund of the Fountain

First of all, I have authored this month's SWG character biography on Uinen for anyone who wants to take a look. I chose her because I thought she'd be easy. Ha! I know heartofoshun will relate to the growing sense of panic when the essay you thought you'd easily finish five days ago somehow keeps growing because you keep getting so many damn ideas about this character and how she connects to this, that, and the other. Uinen! The seaweed goddess!!! Who knew.

While working on it, some thoughts really clicked into place that had been sort of amorphous in my head prior to this point. For one, I noticed for the first time that the kinds of descriptions in the Books of Lost Tales that I'd often described as "whimsical" bear a striking resemblance to the kind of "diminutive" fairy-stories that Tolkien would later hate on regularly. The descriptions of the houses of the Ainur are the most salient example to come to mind; I mean, in "On Fairy-Stories," he quotes from a particularly awful (in his assessment) story that includes the imagery of a roof made of bat wings ... and he uses that exact same image in describing Nienna's halls in BoLT1! ("... the roof, instead of slats, / Is covered with the wings of bats" vs. "the roof was of bats' wings" ... HMMMM.) These details came out when he rewrote the Silm in the 1930s. I feel like we're seeing that moment so many of us have had as a young writer where we 1) do things because we've watched enough other writers to know we're supposed to and 2) eventually come to realize that we don't actually have to.

Then of course is my long-running theory that, over time, Tolkien decreased the moral complexity of the Silm characters and tended to push them more firmly toward Good or Evil rather than letting them muddle about in shades of gray in the middle. Uinen keeps with this trend.

On a completely other note, the SWG mods have been having an interesting discussion about fee-for-fandom. On the one hand, as an archive owner myself, I get the need to have costs covered. The SWG's costs aren't that high so I can cover them myself ... but I'm not sure that's ideal in most circumstances. (Maybe not even the SWG's. I can't be unbiased on the matter.) Fandom shouldn't be owned by the highest bidder; obviously, it is better when it is a collective, democratic endeavor. Yet the other side of me lives in an impoverished community and knows that a fee or book or whatnot that's "not that much" is a lot when you're struggling to meet basic needs, and many people are. Add in that fandom is an international community dealing largely with first-world economies, and the issue of exchange rates becomes especially salient: the price for entry for many of our friends becomes unattainable.

There is also the fact that, according to the demographic data in the 2020 Tolkien Fanfic Survey, there are two large groups of "missing" fans, i.e., demographic groups that appear in the Tolkien fandom in much smaller numbers than would be expected: fans of color and fans without college degrees, the latter of which often translates into working-class and lower-income fans. Obviously, fanfic is free, but other aspects of fandom life are not, and especially the shelf full of hard-to-find books that is often perceived as a necessity. (I think there are other issues at work too, but I suspect this is part of it.)

I don't know the answer, but I do believe that asking the question of what we can do differently or better is worthwhile. Do we want the lack of $20 to exclude someone from a membership or resource or event they would otherwise attend? Can we reach a point, as a community, where the loss of that person and the perspectives they might bring is worse than the loss of the 20 bucks?

Last thing and briefly personal: Our new house has arrived and we move in next week. It has been an ordeal, but it is finally almost over.

I've just updated the SWG's "Ratings & Warnings" document and, perhaps more importantly, posted to the SWG's social media about it, which will mean a few days of white knuckles whenever I open my inbox because no matter how many years we've gone around about this, it still triggers the fuck out of people. Having dealt with* ratings and warnings for sixteen years now as the SWG's owner, I have thoughts on them.

* This word chosen intentionally.

The rest goes below the cut because ratings/warnings themselves set people off, and I may well mention the kinds of things people warn for, so I'm warning now that those warnings may be under discussion of warnings that you will find below the cut.

( Warning: Warnings (and Ratings) )

This morning, at 8:30 AM, Bobby woke me from a dead sleep by calling my name: "Dawn!"

My first thought: Oh shit, I overslept. I was interviewed for the Tolkien Experiences podcast and was doing a live premier with my interviewer, Luke Shelton, at 9:30 this morning. I'd been up late the night before due to a combination of 1) drinking a beverage that consisted of the day-old coffee and amaretto at about 9 PM, 2) getting hooked into research lately, late at night, huddled up in the corner of the couch under my blanket, and last night no exception, and 3) Hermione pooping the bed last night and so changing her bedding and wiping down her crate at 1 AM.

Then: "Come outside, quick!"

Which at that point I thought: Denali's out. Or something got eaten. Or Denali got eaten.

(This is not as randomly morbid as perhaps it seems. Guinevere was very keyed up last night and kept going out onto the deck to bark at the darkness. Then we heard a single gunshot, which in the country, at night, usually means that some animal has gotten into someone's livestock.)

Then: "We have goat babies!"

So despite my brain rushing to all manner of tragedies great and small, it turned out to be a good thing. In thirty seconds, I was running down the steps of my front porch, pulling on my coat, to the barn. They had just been born. One hadn't even stood up yet, and they were both still wet. If Bobby was five minutes earlier, he would have seen it happen. The doe was Elanor, which is not surprising: She is the youngest but also the daughter of a champion milker, and she is ambitious. Always shoving to the front for everything, the biggest, the pushiest, the loudest. Even her hooves grow faster than the others. While I am fond of Lobelia, and Bobby prefers Estella, a.k.a., Brother Silly, Elanor is hard to like because she's so intense. Naturally, she'd be the first to freshen.

We had begun preparations for freshening, but we didn't think it'd happen till mid-May based on our math. We brought home our buck, Denali, in mid-November. His owner didn't have him on grain, so he was tiny, and ... how do I put this politely? ... he frankly couldn't reach our does, who have been on grain since they were little and were large animals by this point. We started him on grain, and he grew fast after that, and we figured he could reach by mid-December, giving us till mid-May. Well! It seems where there is a will, there is a way, and Denali and Elanor figured something out because, by the math, she got pregnant in mid- to late November, shortly after we brought Denali home. Anyway, Bobby had a birthing kit set up, and thank goodness he'd gotten Denali moved out into his own bachelor pad a few days prior, but we weren't expecting to need any of this stuff for a few weeks yet, so there was much scrambling around to get it and the usual miasma of nerves that attends doing anything like this for the first time. But we did it. We got the kids dried off and dipped their navels; they wouldn't nurse right away, so we milked out colostrum from Elanor and bottle-fed enough to them according to their weight.

I missed my podcast premier.

I reached a point where I thought, if I make it, I hope this not on video: I was in my pajamas with unbrushed hair, literally covered in wood shavings and straw, dabbed here and there with blood, iodine, and goat colostrum. But I didn't make it, so it didn't matter. There is the truism that goats freshen at the worst possible time, and this was probably the worst possible time for me all week because this was something I was really looking forward to.

Elanor, true to character, did not seem enthralled with motherhood. So we milked her and, when the time came, dutifully heated up bottles ... and discovered that they had already been nursing! So, so far, no bottle feeding. No bottle feeding. If we had to bottle feed, of course, I'd deal with it. We bottle-fed all three does. Which is why it's not something I find enchanting anymore. We bottle-fed all three does, for months. It was cute and fun when they were little and got old fast after that. I'd much rather leave this work to Elanor.

And the stats: We had one little doeling--about 1 lb.--and a little buckling at about 3 lbs. We won't name them--their eventual owners can do that--but I've given then placeholder names of Stoicism (the buckling) and Persistence (the doeling), based on their personalities.

So. This is another huge step for our enterprise (which we have named Forn Rhûn Farm) as homesteaders and maybe someday small business owners. We now have our own source of milk and all the wonderful things that come with that. We were down to see the babies about an hour ago, and all are doing well. Elanor has settled in; the kids are content and either toddling around or nestled in the straw.

Lobelia and Brother Silly are next. Brother Silly is huge; it would not surprise me if she has triplets. Lobelia, on the other hand, is the smallest, and it would not surprise me if she singled for her first. At this point, we have to expect that they could arrive any day now because who knows when Denali managed his magic. Keeping with the freshen-at-the-worst-possible-time trend, I fully expect Brother Silly to freshen during the SWG book club on Sunday.

Naturally, I could not ask y'all to sit through all this and then not post pictures of the kids.

( Goat Kids )

About a month after losing Lancelot, Bobby started to look at what options existed for Golden Retrievers in Vermont. We have always had two, and we really believe in having two because they are playmates and companions for each other in a way that we, as humans, cannot be. We did not intend to get a new puppy anytime soon, but much like when we called about Goldens in Maryland and ended up with Guinevere because they'd just had a litter, and she was the last one left, when Bobby found a breeder about an hour away and called, they'd also just had a litter. Since there were only four certified breeders in Vermont, we decided to take the opportunity. This time, we got to choose, which was honestly the most stressful part. I didn't want to choose. All three of our Goldens were the last in their litters to go, and all three were wonderful dogs. Nonetheless, two weeks ago, we went. It was a litter of thirteen, so the room was full of five-week-old puppies scampering around and playing. One crawled into my lap--a little girl with an orange collar--and a little boy with a red collar crawled into Bobby's. So as cliche as it sounds, they picked us. We ended up choosing them both.

Honestly, when we decided to get a new puppy, I was not ready. I actually got quite annoyed when Bobby posted about it on Facespace, and people at work pounced on me about it the next day, and I wasn't ready to think--much less talk--about it. I was also not ready for Guinevere, and I adore her, so I know it will turn out okay, but I would have wanted to be more excited for her babyhood. But puppy pick-out got me really excited. Meeting them made quite the difference. I couldn't stop thinking about them for the two weeks before we went to pick them up.

We brought them home Sunday. They are seven weeks old, the youngest we have ever had a puppy. (Both Alex and Lance were nine weeks old. Guinevere was fifteen weeks old.) We have called them Hermione and Gawain.

There's not a whole lot more to say now about them. I'll just dump a bunch of pictures of them below the cut with some anecdotes that have emerged in their first days with us.

( Hermione and Gawain )

I have been putting off writing this entry because I was honestly exhausted by the whole situation. Going back to work, everyone wanted to console me about it, which is thoughtful but means I had to have the same conversation as I'm about to type here about twenty times, plus people wanting updates while he was sick. I just wasn't up to writing it again, but I need to. So. Here I am.

We lost Lancelot over December break. We had to put him down on the 22nd, on Solstice. The vet had said he'd do well until he didn't. That's exactly what happened. Earlier in the month, we came home and he wouldn't get up. We took him for an emergency appointment the next day, and his vet was able to adjust his meds and start him on a round of antibiotics that brought him back from the brink. Nonetheless, where he was gaining in endurance by the day before that point, now he was starting to lose the same. He was moving less and sometimes fell down the steps. He was less willing to try to do things and lost some of his interest in activities, like going for walks, that he always loved.

On Friday, the last day of school before break, I came home from work and found him on his bed, unable to get up. Bobby called his vet the next morning, and she adjusted his meds again. However, it didn't work this time. We were having to carry him outside to use the bathroom; his legs started giving out, and he'd just tumble sideways into the snow. On Saturday, I was home while Bobby was practicing with the snowboard team, and I carried him into the study with me and laid him on a blanket beside my desk. He always stayed next to me in the study while I worked. He wouldn't ask for anything, and I honestly rarely even registered that he was there. But he was there. He was unable to even lift his head from the floor. He laid there, panting hard and staring, wide-eyed, for hours. It was awful. It was clear that he was, at best, uncomfortable. At worst, suffering. And I knew it was the last time I'd have him beside me while I worked.

That night, we put him on the ottoman and watched Elf. It was the most comfortable he'd been all day. He slept for a while. I kept my feet pressed against him. I allowed myself to laugh. Bobby was beside me with Guinevere between us. When it was time for bed, I thought, "This might be the last time our little family is together." It's rare, I found, to know those moments when they come. But time is what it is, and even knowing what I did, I had to leave that moment behind me, in memory.

It was our last time all together. The next morning, Bobby couldn't even get him to stand when he carried him outside. He tumbled over no matter what he did. He called the vet, and she met us again for an emergency appointment so that we could put him down. I couldn't stand the thought of him suffering for even another day. I felt awful that he'd suffered even as much as he did. We had no idea that the adjusted meds wouldn't work, but when it was clear they wouldn't ... well, he'd been too good of a friend to us.

Bobby had already dug the grave, before the ground froze, at my mom's urging. We wrapped Lancie in the old comforter that was on our bed for most of his life before Guinevere, scratching at it to make a nest, ripped it beyond repair. We tucked in toys and treats and a little Matchbox dumptruck because we had invented this story of him as a construction worker that the entire family knows and, at this point, contributes to in small ways. (My dad once brought a cake for Lancelot's birthday with a construction worker decoration on it.) I read what I have come to think of as the funeral texts from Whitman's Song of Myself. And then began the long slow grief. It wasn't the gutpunch of bewilderment that losing Alex was. I knew it was coming, and so it felt easier in a way, but nothing can prepare you for the moments when you expect someone to be there and they just ... aren't. I still encounter them from time to time. I had one yesterday, coming here and seeing my entry from mid-December and thinking, he was probably right behind me on the floor when I wrote that ...

He was my sweet little boy. And goddamn the time went fast. I can still remember seeing him for the first time, running out into the road as we walked Alex, and our neighbors asking if we wanted him, and needing only a few hours to decide, yeah, we did. And then his life was superimposed on ours and woven with it.

Until it was not.

The summer is winding to a close for me, and it's been a busy one in terms of research and writing. I have a few new things out in the past couple of weeks that might be of interest!

First, I was interviewed on the Athrabeth Podcast about my survey research into the Tolkien fanfiction community. I talk about Tolkien fandom history, cultures, how Tolkienfic interacts with authority, and the use of Tolkienfic to address social justice.

I just posted a response on The Heretic Loremaster to C. Brandon Ogbunu's How White Nationalists Have Co-Opted Fan Fiction. My response, Dangerous Ideas Are Not Fanfiction considers what I see as some fundamental failings in Ogbunu's comparison.

And I wrote a story for the incomparable heartofoshun in honor of her 100th character biography. Yes, this was a few months ago. The story is called Boundaries (link to the SWG), and now that I've lived with it for a couple of weeks, I am more comfortable in saying that I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Here is the summary:

Fingon is constantly pushing Maedhros's boundaries, but this time, he has gone too far. Put on mandatory sick leave after an injury, Maedhros decides to spend his three weeks recuperating alone, setting Fingon on a chase across Aman to find and make amends to his lover ... and yes, transgress one more boundary, one more time. Maedhros/Fingon.

It is also on AO3 and my website, and comments are welcome in all places. This was my first time writing for a Matryoshka challenge; usually, since I write the prompts, I lose the element of surprise that is essential to making this challenge type work. The good part about my stressful conclusion to the school year? I lost all memory of the Matryoshka prompts I created during that time! So I finally got to participate. Never one to slouch, I did the difficult challenge for my inaugural attempt. It was harder than I expected! I really don't understand how people advocated for taking the word count limits out that I had the first time I ran a Matryoshka because they wanted to write 1000-word ficlets for the difficult prompt set. How??? The story ended up longer than it would have otherwise, and the prompts forced me to introduce elements that I otherwise would not have--but that is is the whole point, and since one of the elements is the little harp that many people loved, it turned out okay.

We had to trade in my Jeep, Sherman. Vermont has an annual vehicle inspection requirement, and what it would have cost to fix what was wrong with him was more than he was worth. I've been driving him on an expired inspection sticker for four months now, nervous every time I pass a cop car.

I'm sad. Sadder than I should be! I am not a materialistic person--identifying "shopping" as a pastime is as odd to me as saying "nailclipping," both being necessities that are vaguely satisfying in the moment but nothing I crave to do on the reg--but I get very attached to the possessions I do have. And I was very attached to Sherman. He was quirky--he hated going up hills and would sometimes refuse to shift out of first gear--but fun. Going over frost heaves or even moderate-sized potholes in him was like being on a carnival ride! He was constantly dirty in excess of what seems plausible for our dirt roads. He was brown--I called him my big brown beast--so it didn't show, but his license plate was unreadable most of the time because of the mud. I only drove him to work and weekend errands during snowboarding season but always like to imagine that he and I were going on a great adventure.

Bobby got a remarkably good trade-in for him, considering all that was wrong with him, and put it toward a used red pickup truck. The pickup truck is key; as our homestead has expanded, so has the need for a vehicle that can transport larger loads, or just things (like straw) that you don't want inside your car. It is indicative of how well Bobby knows me--we have been together 23 years on Friday--that when he called to tell me about it, he offered that I could call it Fëanor as consolation to having to give up Sherman. The thing I most like about it, though, is the 600-mile/6-year warranty. That is a very Walls thing to like.

I drove the new truck today, and it was like driving Sherman but less wacky. Normally, though, I will drive the Suzuki and Bobby will take the truck since he does most of the ag-related pickups. But the back windshield on the Suzuki shattered while Bobby was attaching his bike rack, and he took it to be replaced today. (The other good thing about the pickup: no need to fuss any longer with racks for things. We can put kayaks and bikes and such right in the back. See, logically, I know it was a good choice. I still miss Sherman like crazy, though.)

In a total 180, Bobby and I were sitting outside in the hot tub on Friday night. It was a chilly night and the hot tub was above-average hot, so there was a lot of steam, and what I thought was a plane flew over, spewing a distinctive contrail behind it. After I made the requisite InfoWars joke by shouting, "Stop spraying us!" I noticed that the contrail was rather ... luminous. "Hey, that's really trippy," I said, assuming it was a trick of all the steam from the hot tub or maybe the atmosphere.

And then it passed beyond the steam and resolved itself into a string of little lights. We see all kinds of wild shit in the sky because we have relatively little light pollution and also spend a lot of time in the hot tub and thus staring into the night sky. Satellites passing overhead are commonplace; this looked like a train of satellites. I still wasn't convinced that it wasn't a trick of the atmosphere or steam, but it was weird and cool, and I made a mental note to look up what might have caused it.

Well, Bobby beat me to it, and it turns out it was indeed satellites: sixty of them, launched by SpaceX to beam broadband Internet. I've since learned that there is worry about the launch of more of these--up to 12,000 (!!)--and the impact that would have not only on astronomers but anyone who likes to look skyward at night.

So something that was cool and strange when I first saw it has now been tainted, and I'm almost embarrassed at how excited I was when I first saw it. Because it was cool--beautiful even--but I don't know that I want to see a freight depot's worth of them on any given night, truckin' across the sky.

Night before last, we were treated to bright flashes of light at large intervals and at random across the sky. They were like camera flashes. I feel like I see these often but only out of my peripheral vision, where I don't trust what I think I've seen, but I was looking directly at them twice this time, as was Bobby. I don't know what this was.

Anyway, the SpaceX satellites: this is the third time we've seen something like this by accident. We've seen the International Space Station go over twice too, without planning to see it, just happening to be outside and looking up at the right place and time.

I started this post yesterday and then Bobby, who was playing Mario 3 or our NES, was like, "You should come in and play too!" and the Siren's call of nostalgic video games overwhelmed the urge to writing about books and writing.

First of all, I'm doing a Read Around the World challenge. I started it p-locked (and my list is still in-progress because I'm also trying to read a book set in each of the 50 U.S. states and have more to add than what I've listed so far) but am opening it up because 1) I'd love recommendations on what to read and 2) thought it might be useful for others who want to expand their reading horizons.

There's a lot of YA on the list, which is more an occupational hazard than a personal preference. ( Read more... )

Titles in bold are written by an author who is from the country or whose parents are immigrants from the country.

I am not doing this for the U.S. list, where I will try to read a book set in each of the 50 states.

I am listing each book I read for each country. On the U.S. list, I am listing only one book that I think best fits that state.

Titles followed by (YA) are young adult or teen books.

Lists of novels by country (Wikipedia)

Recommendations are super welcome.

( The List )

Crossposted from Tumblr, where I received an anon ask: Do you think after Maedhros dies his spirit goes to Mandos or does he face the eternal darkness for “breaking” his oath? I love the character and I often think about what his ultimate fate is because he had an end like no other elf that I can think of.

I'm trying to do better about posting fannish stuff here, so here is my answer!

---

I don’t think the Everlasting Darkness is a thing. I think Maedhros goes to Mandos (if he chooses) or remains a spirit in Middle-earth (if he chooses not to go).

(Personally I think that he–they all–choose to go to Mandos.)

His seven sons leaped straightway to his side and took the selfsame vow together, each with drawn sword. They swore an oath which none shall break, and none should take, by the name of the Allfather, calling the Everlasting Dark upon them, if they kept it not; and Manwe they named in witness, and Varda, and the Holy Mount, vowing to pursue with vengeance and hatred to the ends of the world Vala, Demon, Elf, or Man as yet unborn, or any creature great or small, good or evil, that time should bring forth unto the end of days, whoso should hold or take or keep a Silmaril from their possession.

( Read more... )