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| The Acceptable Sacrifice by Larner | 16 Review(s) |
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| Baggins Babe | Reviewed Chapter: Epilogue 2 on 3/14/2006 |
| I always find your notes fascinating and informative. Only last week I was reading about spider venom and the effect of the bite of the Brown Recluse Spider - a tiny little thing with devastating consequences. Victims suffer severe and worsening ulceration spreading from the bite, resulting sometimes in the loss of a limb. As this spider is smaller than the average garden spider the effect of a bite from Shelob on a hobbit does not bear thinking about! Even modern medicine seems powerless. I gather the only thing which has helped some people is regular blasts from a police stun gun! Thank you again for a wonderful and powerfully moving story. I'm keeping fingers crossed that the plotbunny will beat the Nuzgul to the draw for your next one! Author Reply: The necrosis I described in my author's notes is precisely the same thing as the ulceration you describe here. Imagine what could happen if the bite is to the torso or abdomen or face instead of the leg or arm? We have some brown recluse spiders here, far more rarely Black Widows, and so on. Among our most common in this area, however, are wolf spiders. I picked up and carried home a tarantula once when I lived in Tulsa as a small child, and find them attractive, myself, although I wouldn't keep one. So, the necrosis is now being treated by taser blasts? The idea makes me feel somewhat ill! You never know what will come next, however. Probably both the plotbunnies (it's been joined by a few others) and the nuzguls will attack at the same time. The nuzgul I'm drawn to most is quite attractive, tall and laughing and rather brilliant in nature. But the one in the jewel box needs to be dealt with, of course. | |
| French Pony | Reviewed Chapter: Epilogue 2 on 3/14/2006 |
| Whoa. That was quite possibly the longest, most detailed and informative author's note I've ever seen. I liked that, especially your explanations of the workings of spider venom and PTSD. I shall have to save this story in case I need a future reference. Thank you! Author Reply: TooBadlyHurt is an essay you probably need to read as well. My introduction to shell shock was as a result of short stories I'd read when a child and teenager about returning veterans after WWI and WWII reinforced by reading The Robe and The Ship of Ishtar, in both of which the main characters experience this condition, Marcellus to the point of attempting suicide. Then, after a visit to Dachau with our children when they were fourteen, I began researching PTSD and survivors to the Nazi camps, and found it fascinating. That you should find these notes so informative I find flattering. And I look forward to reading more of your own works. | |
| Queen Galadriel | Reviewed Chapter: Epilogue 2 on 3/13/2006 |
| Thank *you*. Your notes and explanations here were very instructive--far more so than any of the endless research I've done on ptsd-though "Too Deeply Hurt" helped a great deal as well. I still can't believe this is finished. I can look back over the past several months, and certain parts of the story come to mind-the night I first stumbled across it, desperate for something to read in September, I think; "getting used to" court life through this and finding that I liked it after all; the hobbits' life in Minas Tirith; the chapter about the soldier whom Frodo comforted-I still have to say that's my favourite part; Aragorn and Arwen's wedding; the delightful affair of the bath tub full of fruit :); Mina and her gentleness and protective love; and that little nursery rhyme that Frodo sings to the little girl in the Houses of Healing. I'll say with Harrowcat that this story (and others of yours) has impacted even my moods, especially on those days that have been less than pleasant. I try to stick to canon myself, most of the time, but I enjoy your view of things very much-and heartily agree that Frodo and Sam, after experiencing all they did, would *not* be able to go to a feast and eat like hobbits, whatever power to heal Aragorn may have. Not to undermine him, of course, but it just doesn't happen that way. I'm torn between helping Dreamflower out and giving you my sympathy on turning to publishable work. (BTW, I have not forgotten your Frodo and Aragorn story, but an original has got me all rapt up in it lately, and it's hard to leave a young girl who is dying and her desperate family and friends, you know.) Anyway, I can certainly sympathise, but I can't wait to see more from you! :) Namarie, God bless, Galadriel Author Reply: It's so wonderful to see specifically which parts of the story meant the most to you. So many seemed to appreciate the expansion on the story of the soldier which was first mentioned in "The King's Commission" and the bathtub of fruit story told from Pippin's point of view in "The Ties of Family" and how the drawing of Arwen's image caught in the boughs of the dead White Tree first mentioned in "The King's Commission" came to be. I see that image myself in my mind, but haven't yet been able to reproduce it as yet in my drawings. That apparently my stories have managed to help others find inspiration means a great deal to me. Certainly Tolkien's work has offered that to me. Thank you. At the moment I'm so in need of good vibes and prayers. I'll probably continue on with my fan fiction as well as working on my original story. Am going to have to get on that now, though. I need some workable income. | |
| Dreamflower | Reviewed Chapter: Epilogue 2 on 3/13/2006 |
| Thank you for including your notes on the decisions you made regarding Frodo's story as you wrote it. I have frequently found myself in agreement with a great many (though not all) of the assumptions you have made as ones which I had thought of as well. And I think you have done a brilliant job! As to PTSD, I had already been greatly inflenced in my own understanding of this from this online essay: http://www.geocities.com/karynmilos/toodeeplyhurt.html I don't know if you are familiar with it, but it made a huge impression on me, as I read it shortly before I began writing fic myself. I find myself looking forward a good deal to more from you--I really would like to read the story of Pippin's "reconciliation" scene with his father, that you hinted at. And I would like to know more of Brendi and Narcissa's story as well. Not to throw bunnies at you or anything... Author Reply: TooDeeplyHurt is one site I keep bookmarked, for it helped gel much of what I myself felt about Frodo Baggins. At the time I first read LOTR two of my favorite books were The Robe by Lloyd C. Douglas and The Ship of Ishtar by Abraham Merrit. Both Marcellus in the Robe and John Kenton in The Ship go through shell shock. I'd read a few other books set during or after WWI and WWII which also featured characters who were suffering from the condition; I certainly recognized it in Frodo as soon as I read ROTK. And how could he not know it, considering what he went through? As for our mutual agreement on much of the characterization we do--what can I say? Great minds do tend to think alike, after all. Now you offer me more plot bunnies and nuzguls? Oh, dear, you're going to keep me writing here when I do really need to work on Louie and John's story, you know! | |
| harrowcat | Reviewed Chapter: Epilogue 2 on 3/13/2006 |
| PP.S 'Yeh' I finally get to be the first to review!!! Although, as it is nearly midnight, my 8.30am meeting people my not thank you so much when my brain is not in gear! Author Reply: Well, they'll understand, probably! Heh! | |
| harrowcat | Reviewed Chapter: Epilogue 2 on 3/13/2006 |
| Oh Larner, the thanks are very much ours to you for honouring us with your writing. And I, for one, got so much more than simple enjoyment out of the reading; pleasure and laughter, sorrow and tears; each have come in turn. I have never failed to be moved by each of the chapters as they have appeared and will certainly be re-reading but more to savour the whole than to look for errors or changes. I also get nearly as much from reading your responses to reviews and your detailed and thoughful notes as I do from the story. Above all, your writing has/is sustaining me through some of my own life-experiences - Again, THANK YOU. P.S So now what? *grin* Can't wait for more!!!! Author Reply: Thank you so much. Writing these stories has helped me a good deal in dealing with the feelings engendered by some of my own life issues, but not necessarily in solving them, though, or so I find. That I've managed to move you to so many moods and emotions shows I'm doing my job as a writer, of course, and I look forward one day to seeing some of your work. And am glad my notes have also managed to instruct and move you, or just to evoke further thought on your side. As for what's next? I'm not certain, particularly as Dreamflower just added more nuzguls and plotbunnies to the menage! Let me know how your mom is doing. | |